


birds of a feather

by raggirare



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-06 06:25:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5406401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raggirare/pseuds/raggirare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Routine means it's always the same, but they wouldn't have it any other way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	birds of a feather

**Author's Note:**

  * For [furufish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/furufish/gifts).



Eita is always the first one to arrive. It’s expected, of course, considering he lives the closest to the school of the regulars and is always the earliest one to rise, up and out before the sun has risen to run his dog. He carries the key, spinning the keychain around his right index finger, and sings along to music playing in his ears. He opens the door of the clubroom first, and then his locker, and he takes his time in getting changed into his training gear.

Wakatoshi arrives a few minutes later. They call it ‘late’ but he’s not really, because it’s the same time he arrives every morning. He always arrives with red bean paste buns in hand, as well, with the silent excuse that he didn’t have time to make a proper breakfast, even though Eita knows that the ace was up around the same time as him and would have had plenty of time even with the distance between the school and the farm. There’s an extra for Eita as well, which he quietly nibbles at as the captain changes, and then they both walk together to open the gymnasium.

Satori arrives with a loud greeting and one hand cupping his mouth, the other clasped around the wrist of a disgruntled Hayato. They live in the same direction, so Satori often bikes to the libero’s house and walks the next fifteen minutes together (and then runs the last two, because Satori always has too much energy no matter what time of the day it is). Morning pleasantries follow, and Reon arrives as the other two head off to change. Their steady vice-captain follows them as well, but returns within a minute or two, only needing to drop his bag off because he’s the only one who seems to get changed before coming to school (although Reon says it’s because he has to come directly from working in the family bakery with his father, and changing straight into training clothing means only needing one shower after training to prevent his uniform from becoming too dirty).

Hayato appears next, and Satori a moment later, happily chattering off a patient Yunohama’s ear. In the same moment, Taichi arrives, and Kenjirou makes their prescence known with a called greeting into the front of the gymnasium, barely pausing to wait for an acknowledgement and reply before they both moved off to get changed.

The last to arrive, when they’re already setting up the nets and the rest of the equipment for the non-regulars when they arrive, is always Tsutomu, full of energy and already changed because he always makes straight for the clubroom first before the gym. It marks the arrival of the last of the starting members and pinch members, and the start of their training.

(Everyone learns to stop complaining that the regulars training starts an hour earlier in the morning than the rest of the team within the first week of being a regular.)

Roadwork follows, simple and easy.

It’s a half an hour long run through the school grounds and out into the surrounding suburbs, following roads and side paths to make the most of the terrain. They start as a large group at the same speed, but it never lasts long and they gradually thin further and further out. Wakatoshi takes the lead, as he always does, and Satori and Tsutomu follow behind, the younger driven by his urge to overcome their captain and the elder the only one who can chatter and run with such energy without prior warm-up. Reon and Eita keep a steady pace not far behind, both already warmed up from their morning exercise (Eita, his dog run, and Reon, his bakery work), but also partially keeping an eye on the two energetic players ahead in case they hurt each other - or worse: themselves. Hayato has to take two steps for each of Yunohama’s, but the effort doesn’t show on his face or in his energy as he keeps up his conversation about classwork with the float server. Taichi and Kenjirou bring up the rear, their pace more relaxed and even, though not slow enough that they get entirely left behind (initial morning runs are the only ones where Wakatoshi doesn’t disappear out of sight because even he needs to warm up efficiently).

By the time they all return the school, the grounds are a lot livelier with the members of other clubs having arrived and begun preparing for the morning trainings, including the majority of the members of their own team. Some were still getting changed, others doing their warm up run around the school grounds, and the rest in the gymnasium stretching or doing sectional practice to kill time. It was a rule that, when practice started at exactly seven in the morning, every single member was expected to be warmed up and stretched effeciently ready to start training the moment the coach arrived.

(And god forbid you were ever late, without an acceptable excuse that you had notified Washijou of in advance.)

Morning training is nothing special, apart from the fact that regulars become regular. The entire team practices together, always focusing on various basics and drills to ensure that the very foundations of their fort are as strong as they could ever be. It’s a little like riding a bike, things that you won’t really forget, but they all understand it doesn’t hurt to sharpen their skills to razor sharp wire (and know better than to go against what their coach instructs).

Practice ends at eight, and everyone works together to clean up so it can go quicker, but the regulars always linger behind. There’s no point rushing, after all. There’s an entire team that needs to get through the showers and get changed, and they have half an hour (twenty minutes, really, by the time they finish packing up) before the chime rings to signal the start of the school day.

Reon is the only one who disappears ahead of the others, but it’s always to make a return, interrupting the final drink break with a bag of fresh-baked banana loaf (with far more bananas than the recipe really calls for) sliced into enough pieces for one each, and his logic has always been that the bananas give enoguh of a boost to pick them back up straight after training for just long enough that the carbohydrates have time to kick in and carry them until their morning break.

(Mostly, Reon likes to see his friends happy about eating his baking.)

The classes of the day pass by with little incident, because they’re the kind of students to be more focused and concerned about their sport than their class. There are exceptions, of course, but for the most part they’re thinking more about the resounding echo of a volleyball against wood floor rather than chalk scraping along a whiteboard. They don’t see outside their own year groups again until lunch break, and even them it’s incredibly segregated, and it’s only really Hayato who doesn’t eat with the third years, because he’s the only one who brings a lunch box while the other four eat at the cafeteria.

When they finally reach club time, the system changes, the regulars stay regulars and they greet the college team across the court from them and they win. Sometimes they lose, sometimes it’s close, sometimes they play so many times they lose count. The non-regulars leave, and the college team leaves as well, and the regulars and their pinch servers stay to practice individually and together, ironing out even the smallest of kinks and cracks in their power-driven strategy. They practice until well after the sun sets, even through stomachs grumbling past the extra lunch boxes they had packed, and even after the coaches take their leave, trusting them to know what to do (which they do).

It’s the captain who calls an official end and they collectively clean up the gym then head to the clubroom to shower and change.

Tsutomu is the fastest to shower and dress, out the door like a lightning bolt so he can make sure he gets home in time for dinner.

Taichi and Kenjirou leave next, bags on their shoulders and discussions of the class homework on their mind (and often one will go to the others house to study together).

Satori bounces out with a loud fairwell to fetch his bike, and Yunohama gives a quiet nod in farewell as he leaves with Hayato to meet Yunohama’s mother at the gate.

Eita takes the longest to shower and then to dress, and by the time he’s done, both Wakatoshi and Reon are sitting on a bench together in silence, or sometimes in the middle of small talk regarding that day’s training.

There’s more time spent waiting for the setter to collect his things before they can finally leave, Eita locking the door and pocketing the key with a flourish. They walk in time towards the gate and then out, taking a detour past Reon’s favourite vending machine for his favourite brand of milk tea that he can’t find in any vending machines near the bakery.

They stay together until the top of Eita’s street.

Sometimes they part ways immediately, other times they part ways after a few words, and then there are times where, even if the original intention was to go home alone, they end up following their setter with nimble, calloused fingers gripping their wrists.

Homework is the excuse.

(Whether they get any done or not is another matter entirely.)


End file.
